Genetic implications of escaped farmed-salmon on wild populations.

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Abstract

Aquaculture is a large contributor to the worlds total production of fish. In 2008 46% of the total fish supply came from aquaculture which amount to 62 million tonnes a year (FAO 2010). Salmon are known to migrate back to their river of birth to spawn. Studies have shown that for many other traits, including migration, individual salmon population are locally adapted. These local adaptations for many different traits make the Salmon populations vulnerable when interactions occur that could affect these traits (Taylor 1991). Salmon from different populations for example have shown to have different migratory behaviour when exposed to the same stimuli (Raleigh 1971). The experiments from McGinnity et al. (1997) where farmed and hybrid Salmon were released in a river system showed that these fish had a lower fitness compared to wild Salmon. In the model from Hindar et al. (2006) the factor that had the largest effect on the wild population was an annually high number of escaped farmed fish. Increasing safety measures to minimise the amount of escaping fish and designating protection zones are thus to be prioritized to reduce the negative effects.